Ed. Dept. To Release List Of Recommended Math Programs

The U.S. Department of Education is set this week to confer its seal
of approval on 10 programs for teaching mathematics to students in
kindergarten through 12th grade.

For More
Information

"Exemplary and
Promising Mathematics Programs" is scheduled to be available online
at www.enc.org/. Print copies are
also available by calling (877) 4ED-PUBS.

The list, scheduled to be unveiled Oct. 6 during
a Tampa, Fla., education conference, represents a first step in what
federal officials hope will be a continuing effort to review and
recommend curricular programs that work.

But, by singling out a handful of "exemplary" and "promising" math
programs, the department is also wading deeper than ever into a debate
that is dividing parents and educators around the country.

By design, every program on the list reflects the pedagogical
approaches embedded in the voluntary standards written a decade ago by
the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.

Once almost universally applauded, those guidelines have come under
heavy attack in recent years from proponents of more traditional
methods of teaching math.

"This is an abomination," Wayne Bishop, a mathematician at
California State University-Los Angeles, said of the new list. "It has
no business being debated by the federal government or anyone
else."

Fine Line

More than two years in the making, the recommendations are drawn
from national panels of teachers, mathematicians, program evaluators,
and scientists.

Mathematics Programs

These are the
math programs recommended for "exemplary'' status by the U.S.
Department of Education:

College Preparatory Mathematics
Program, a four-year secondary school program

Connected Mathematics, designed
for students in grades 6-8

Core-Plus Mathematics Project,
an integrated high school program

Interactive Mathematics
Program, an integrated, problem-based high school
curriculum

Pact Algebra, a full-year,
technology-based course for students in grades 7-12

Programs
recommended for "promising'' status:

Everyday Mathematics, a program
for grades K-6

Mathland, also for grades
K-6

Middle School Mathematics
Through Application Project

Number Power, a supplemental
program for grades K-6

University of Chicago School
Mathematics Project, a six-course curriculum for grades
7-12

SOURCE: U.S.
Department of Education

Federal law has long prohibited the
Education Department from exercising any control over curricula. But
the department, almost since its inception, has also had in place
systems for reviewing and recommending effective school programs. And,
until its demise in 1996, the department's National Diffusion Network
helped disseminate programs that made the cut in a wide range of
disciplines.

Mandated by Congress in 1994, the new evaluation system is meant to
be an improved version of the old network. The NDN, in its last few
years, was criticized for endorsing narrowly focused programs that
often did not add up to broad-scale change in the schools where they
were used.

Unlike their predecessors, the new panels focus on particular
subject areas, such as math or technology, and teachers are actively
involved in the reviews.

But the old network's more wide-ranging approach also helped it
steer clear of some pedagogical debates.

What neither system does, however, is require schools to use the
recommended programs or offer special funding to induce educators to
use them.

"If a district has a different set of criteria they like to use,
they may turn elsewhere," said Linda P. Rosen, director of America
Counts, an initiative by the Education Department to improve math
education. "If you look at Consumer Reports, not everyone buys
the same items on the list because they're looking for different
qualities."

The decision to choose materials that reflect the newer math
approaches came from the expert panel itself.

Among its 17 members were several from organizations, such as the NCTM
and the National Science Foundation, that had a hand in creating or
promoting the national math standards. And in 1997, when the panels
were formed, many states were looking to those standards as they
remodeled their own teaching guidelines.

Under the process the panel devised, programs looking for approval
were reviewed at least twice before even reaching the expert panel.
Field reviewers--most of whom were teachers--evaluated the programs for
their educational significance. Statisticians and psychometricians also
screened submissions to determine whether program developers had the
data to back up their claims of success.

The 10 programs that made the final cut were drawn from an original
list of 61.

"I think it's good news that there really are some exemplary
programs that live up to rigorous review and a high set of standards,"
said Steven Leinwand, a consultant for the Connecticut education
department and a former NCTM president. "There's no doubt in my mind
that students learning any of these materials would benefit
academically."

Making the List

To earn an "exemplary" designation, programs must provide convincing
evidence of their effectiveness in multiple schools or districts and
with a range of student populations. Most of the programs on the
department's list are designed for high schools and middle schools. And
most--but not all--combine subjects such as algebra, trigonometry, and
geometry rather than teaching them as separate courses.

Of the five programs rated exemplary, one--Connected Mathematics,
developed at Michigan State University--was recently rejected for
adoption in California, the state at the vanguard of the "math wars."
Some of the mathematicians there who reviewed that middle school
program complained that it contained errors and gave short shrift to
basic concepts, such as the division of fractions, according to Richard
Askey, a University of Wisconsin-Madison mathematician who sat on the
state panel and who also took part in the federal review process.

The program, however, was at the top of a short list of recommended
programs published by the American Association for the Advancement of
Science last year.

Emphasis on Concepts

The other four "exemplary" programs are: the College- Preparatory
Mathematics Program, the Core-Plus Mathematics Project, the Interactive
Mathematics Program, and Pact Algebra.

Most of the five programs the panel deemed "promising" are designed
for elementary and middle schools.

Like the national standards, they emphasize helping students acquire
a deeper understanding of mathematical concepts, rather than
concentrate on extensive practice in basic computation skills.

The most controversial program on that list, Mathland, also came
under fire in California. Its critics complain that it fails to
explicitly teach standard procedures for addition, subtraction,
multiplication, and division.

In fact, of all the programs cited by the federal panel, only
one--the University of Chicago School Mathematics Project--also has a
spot on California's list of recommended textbooks, though in a
modified form.

Most of the programs in both categories include a
professional-development component for teachers.

"It doesn't matter how strong you are in content, when you get a new
program you have to learn to think a certain way," said panel member
Genevieve Knight, a scholar-in-residence at Pennsylvania State
University's Capital College campus, near Harrisburg.

The same panel of mathematicians, scientists, and teachers will make
similar recommendations for science programs later this year. And other
panels, using similar methods, are reviewing curricular programs in
technology; gender equity; and safe, disciplined, and drug-free
schools.

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